Fifty years of Italian cinema (1955)

60 or a biting satire. One might say that De Sica himself was afraid of this story, and so he hastens to bring it to an end with some facile joking (the human barometer, the cows in Mobbi's study, etc.). It becomes pseudo-satirical. The first two thirds of the film is rather heterogeneous ; and when Mobbi's militia is practically successful in chasing the poor people from the contested land — an element of fantasy intervenes. It is more fable-like — the second « miracle ». It is the magic wand of the fairy tale. In this case, the magic wand is a white dove given to Toto by the spirit of the old woman who brought him up when his mother died. With the dove in his hands, Toto can have anything he wishes. He is able to repulse the tear gas and militia which Mobbi has brought to the village. He satisfies the wishes of some of his ragged companions for material possession — a tuba, a fur coat, a radio, a wardrobe, a million, a million million. For a while the troubles all seem ended, but the dove is taken away from Toto, and Mobbi triumphs. The poor vagabonds are squeezed into trucks to be taken to prison. But again Toto gets hold of the dove. With it, he succeeds in liberating his friends, each of whom jumps astride a street-sweeper's broom. Through the magic of the dove Toto is able to make the brooms serve as steeds, and the vagabonds ride off into the sky, towards a better world, where « good day really means good day ». The real meaning of Miracle in Milan is that the earth is for the rich and powerful, while the only hope for the poor is the « kingdom of heaven ». This is a point of view which many artists handle seriously and with indignation, not with jokes and nursery fables. De Sica handles this theme with a timid caution, which turns to ambiguity. He accepted too many of Zavattini's details (the film is taken from Zavattini's story Toto il Buono (Toto the Good), which did not add up to a clear plan or a decided form. Perhaps De Sica's greatest problem in this film was an obscure feeling that he was being compelled to apply his experience to a subject he himself did not feel. It was Zavattini who controlled the telling of the story. None the less there are some admirable moments, especially the funeral of the old woman. With Umberto D (1952) De Sica and Zavattini went back in part to that same vein from which Bicycle Thief had sprung. The characters include an old pensioner and his little dog, the mistress of the boarding house who is anxious to get rid of him, the servant girl who is filled with unspoken pity for the old man. The plot is practically negligible, strung together as it is in colorless little episodes from the humble life of an « everyman ». (The only event that stands out is the old man's attempt at suicide at the end — and that is not the best episode). If the plot of Bicycle Thief is a single thread, then here that thread is almost invisible. It is a mute and melancholy little story, little more than a sketch, and from it De Sica and Zavattini had the self-confident courage to attempt the construction of an entire film. De Sica's sympathy had been moved to center on children several times. In Bicycle Thief it had centered on the person of the unemployed man. Now, in Umberto D, it hovers over those sad children who are very old, and on the unemployed, obliged to live on a miserable pension (1). Umberto D is the eulogy of the pensioner, and the drama of loneliness; the (1) In the U.S. this would be the equivalent of living solely on one's Social Security income, perhaps even less so.